


Feel Whole Again

by thepartyresponsible



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 21:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14724002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepartyresponsible/pseuds/thepartyresponsible
Summary: Steve turns to leave. It’s easier to talk, somehow, when he’s not looking at him. “If you need anything,” he says, “I’m just a few floors down.”“Might regret that, Cap,” Tony says to his retreating back. “I’ve been told I’m needy.”Steve doesn’t know who the hell said that to Tony. It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t.“It’s an honor,” he says, a little helpless, out of his depth and out of his time. “It’s an honor to be trusted with something like that, Tony.”





	Feel Whole Again

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fill for the 2018 Stony MCU Bingo. The prompt for this one was "Time Travel." I was going to write a time-traveling, Thanos-trashing post- _Infinity War_ fix-it fic. But then I figured that Steve Rogers is already a time traveler, all on his own.
> 
> Well. With a little help from the ice. 
> 
> This fic is about Steve acclimating to the future, and has references to things like infant mortality, vaccinations, mass shootings, and Tony Stark's beautiful face. So, you know. Fair warning on all fronts. Steve's watching the news, and he has opinions.

                People ask him, sometimes, _What’s the best part of the future_? It’s mostly reporters, fishing for something funny, something silly or strange or endearing, something they can run on the cover of a magazine or tweet out to the masses. He’s a relic; he knows that. But some things don’t change.

                Bucky used to tell him, ever since they were kids: _People just wanna smile, Stevie. You gotta stop being so angry all the time. Just make ‘em laugh. Take it easy on the world for once._

It’s easier now than it used to be. He’ll never have Bucky’s kind of charm, but, these days, people _want_ to laugh with him. Some of the anchors will laugh at nothing, at the dumbest joke he’s ever been ashamed to make, just because he’s Captain America. Or maybe it’s because he’s attractive now. Maybe it’s both.

                “Good God, son,” Fury says, once, after a particularly disastrous interview. “ _Infant mortality_?”

                Steve thinks about little Alice Aarons, who’d never been much taller than him but was always twice as loud, who got pregnant right before her husband shipped out. She’d been a scrapper as a kid, a hellion as a teenager, but she’d been so careful, so hyperaware of danger, as soon as she started to show.

                And then the news about Gene – _I regret to inform you_ – sent her into early labor, and the baby was a fighter too, just like Alice, but that hadn’t been enough. Alice lost her husband and her baby in the same damn month.

                Steve doesn’t have a way of talking about Alice. He’s always been like this with strangers. All the important things lock themselves up behind his teeth, and only Bucky was ever really able to parse the things he couldn’t bring himself to say.

                Without Bucky, he’s got no translator. So some bubbly blonde anchor asks him, “What’s the best part of the future?”

                And Steve says something stupid, something fumbling and awkward. Says, without context or explanation, “Infant mortality’s down.”

                And there’s a pause where he could say, “I grew up with a girl, Alice, and her baby died, and she was holding the whole world together for that kid. So, when he went, she went too. I don’t know if we ever got her back.”

                He could say, “The best part about the future is that there’s less of that.”

                Hell, all he has to say is: “I looked that up on Google, which is the second best part of the future.”

                But he won’t make Alice a joke, and he’s spent his whole damn life trying to punch his way out of everything that’s ever made him feel small, so he sure as hell can’t talk about any of it on national television, so he doesn’t say anything. After that, the interview never quite makes its way back to the easy back-and-forth from before.

                “I’m gonna make you talking points,” Fury says. And then, immediately, he delegates. “Hill, make him talking points.”

                “Sure,” Hill says. She gives Steve a small, professional smile that Steve resents until she finds him later and gives him another, sadder smile that has some of that professionalism ground off the edges.

                “People forget,” she says. “We have short memories, as a society. It still happens, but it’s not something most people here worry about anymore.”

                “That’s good,” Steve says. Because it _is_. Because that’s the best possible outcome, so he doesn’t know why he feels bitter about it. He just wishes Alice’s kid was around to benefit from this better, safer world.

                “Yikes, Cap,” Tony says, after the interview airs, “Next time, try ‘medical advances.’ Dead babies are a buzzkill.”

                Steve takes a deep breath and doesn’t throw anything at his head. He’s been working on this, on not reacting to Tony until the reflexive anger has worked its way out of him. He’s had mixed success, but it’s good to set personal goals. Keeps him occupied, keeps him anchored in this time instead of roaming aimlessly through the past.

                “Well,” he says, meaner than he should be, cold and dismissive, because he knows that’s what pisses Stark off the most, “sorry about your buzz. But it’s after five. I’m sure you’ll find your way to a bottle soon enough.”

                “Ouch,” Stark says, with the slow, lazy blink that means Steve scored a hit. “You know, Rogers,” he continues, after a moment, “deflection is a coward’s move. ‘Home of the brave,’ remember? Try to live up to it.”

                The next week, Steve sees an article that says Stark Industries has started new research into infant mortality, that Tony’s poured a horrifying amount of his own personal money into it, and Steve can’t even read the article, because he’s so angry and resentful and guilty and ashamed.

                He hates this time. He knows that it wasn’t any easier or simpler back in the 1940s, but it _felt_ that way. He’s been ripped out of his context, set adrift in this flashy future, and he wants like hell to go back where he belongs. He wants to go home.

                But home’s gone. And Tony Stark’s the smartest man he knows, and, if Tony could build a time machine to get Steve out of his life, he’d have done it by now. Steve’s sure given him enough reasons.

                He’s stuck here, and it won’t get better. He has to get better.

                It’s on him. Hell, isn’t it always?

 

\- - -

 

                The next time, Steve tries to stick to his talking points. He even uses Tony’s suggestions. “Medical advances,” he says, when he gets the inevitable question about the future from the friendly brunette anchor who talks like he’s from nowhere and can’t go five seconds without flashing teeth. “That’s the best part about the future. You save so many more people now.”

                He’s caught up on the mistake, repeating the word _you_ in his head and already imagining how gently Hill will redirect him: _Don’t say ‘you’ when you mean ‘we.’ Include yourself. This is your country, your people._

And then, Tony, a little sharper, a little more on-the-nose: _We, the people, Cap. We – you and me and them, when they’re willing to claim us – the people._

He’s thinking about that, so he’s not thinking about the ramifications of his next answer, which is how he usually gets into trouble. The anchor asks him for specifics, and Steve says, “Vaccines.”

                He didn’t realize it was political. He’s not prepared for the backlash or the way Stark laughs about it later.

                “Look at you,” he says, with a pat on his shoulder that Steve should shrug off, because it’s condescending and offensive, but doesn’t because it’s the first non-mission, non-sparring contact he’s had in about three weeks. “A champion of science. Who would’ve guessed?”

                “I’ve got a lot to thank science for,” Steve says, maybe a touch defensively.

                “Sure,” Tony says, with a nod. That hand’s still on his shoulder. Steve wonders if it’s a game, if it’s the equivalent for Stark of holding his hand in the fire, waiting to see how long it takes to burn. “Test tube Avenger and all.”

                “Scrap metal superhero,” Steve retorts, without near enough heat.

                Stark blinks and then grins, and he flashes just as many teeth as that interviewer had, but this smile actually reaches his eyes. “Careful, Cap,” he says, “that almost sounded like a compliment.”

                Steve steps away from Tony and takes his tablet with him, skipping to the next page of posts, full of people writing all kinds of nasty things about him. “It wasn’t so long ago,” he says. “Polio, iron lungs. Measles still takes almost 100,000 people a year. I checked. It doesn’t make any sense.”

                “Well, humans,” Stark says, with an elaborate hand gesture and a grimace. “Our risk averse little lizard brains, you know? We judge danger based on what we see. If you don’t see a threat, don’t experience it personally, then it’s not real. And if it’s not real, you don’t take risks to prevent it.”

                Steve remembers the rattle of whooping cough, remembers how it had stayed for months, found a home inside his chest and strangled him, slowly, for a whole winter. He remembers being terrified of himself, of his own damn breath. He remembers staying inside, bundled up and bored out of his mind, because whooping cough was a horror for him, but it’d kill a baby, if they got it, and there he was, carrying a monster in his blood, trying like hell to keep it on a leash.

                “Nobody takes any responsibility,” Steve says, finally setting the tablet down. “People don’t look after each other anymore.”

                Tony considers him for a moment, hands in his pockets and a small, curled-up smile hiding at the edges of his mouth. “Aw, Cap,” he says, a little gentler than Steve’s ever heard from him, “don’t fall into that trap. With people, simple answers are always the wrong ones. They _are_ looking after each other, as best as they can figure out how. Isn’t that always when we do the dumbest things?”

                Steve opens his mouth to argue, but then he thinks about Bucky, following him right to his death. He thinks about himself, squaring off with any number of bullies over the years. He thinks about all those panicked kids, all those desperate POWs, fighting a war they didn’t understand for a cause they’d forgotten, just trying to keep their buddies alive for one more horrible, hellish day.

                It’s never been easy. It’s never been simple.

                But, back then, at least he could understand why people stood on different sides. At least, back then, he’d understood what the sides _were_.

                “C’mon,” Stark says, and there’s that hand on his shoulder again, tighter, tugging him toward the door. “Let’s go to the gym. You can do that thing you love, where you throw me around until I give up on life.”

                And the next day, there are Stark funds being routed into measles vaccination campaigns worldwide, and Steve doesn’t know what to do with Tony Stark. He doesn’t know what it means, that Stark runs off at the mouth whenever they’re in the same room, but then _thinks_ about it afterward, keeps trying to fix the things Steve can’t fix himself.

                He’s not sure if it’s an insult or a declaration of allegiance. It kind of feels like both, which kind of feels like Bucky. It’s nice, either way, not to be alone, not to exist in a vacuum. Not to be treated like a visitor or a guest.

                But God knows, however terrible it is, he’d still rather be back in a time when measles killed millions every single year and nobody in the world was saying, _Well, maybe that’s better than the alternative._

 

\- - -

 

                Steve is spared from PR duties for a while, because Barton accidentally becomes some kind of Twitter sensation, which means he gets pushed to the front to deal with all of the chipper morning talk shows. “Could be worse,” Clint says, once, when he comes back to the Tower. “You didn’t tell me those TV guys were such liberated people, Steve.”

                “If you let a reporter suck you off,” Stark says, without looking up from the coffeemaker, “they’ll be listing your measurements on the evening news.”

                Clint seems to think that over a second and then shrugs. “Huh,” he says, “don’t see how that’s supposed to be a deterrent.” He scoops the coffeepot out of Tony’s hands and sets off toward the elevator.

                “Get back here,” Tony says, incredulous. “I made that!”

                Clint blows him a kiss. “Sorry,” he says, “I’m the new media darling, Stark. That means I get all the perks. You can tell it to my agent.”

                He takes a big swig right out of the pot and heaves a sigh, blissful and pleased and evidentially impervious to hot liquids and shame.

                Steve and Tony are left alone in the communal kitchen. Tony’s already switched to another coffeemaker – there are three, in this kitchen alone – and is muttering to JARVIS about dire plans for retribution. Steve pokes his breakfast around on the plate for a while and then, because he has to, he finally asks, “Would they really do something like that? Discuss his—ah, measurements?”

                “Well, not on the evening news,” Stark says, after a moment. “Late night, maybe, for the specifics. But euphemisms are fair game after about 5:00pm. And brunch shows can get kinda bold, especially if the audience leans more mimosa than coffee.”

                “Wow,” Steve says. He doesn’t get shocked quite as regularly as people seem to want him to, and almost never about the things they expect. People had sex in the 1940s, after all, and at about the same rate as they do these days.

                He knows about the sexual revolution. He read about it.  Google, after all, is the second best part of the future. But the long-term effects of it, the freedom to express what had previously been kept private, the expectation that people had a _right_ to know what used to be protected, can sometimes catch him off-guard.

                “I wouldn’t think,” he starts and then shrugs. “It hardly seems a matter of national interest. He isn’t going to sleep with the whole country.”

                Stark blinks at him. “What’s dick size have to do with sex, Cap? People are just interested.”

                “What does—Tony.” Steve gestures with his fork, a little helplessly. “What _else_ would it have to do with?”

                Tony considers him for a second and then pours himself a cup of coffee and slides into the chair across from him. “Steve,” he says, interested and focused, like this is a puzzle or a problem, “when you go to a strip club, do you expect to get laid?”

                Steve clears his throat. “Stark,” he says. It’s a warning, or a deflection, or both.

                “Okay, fine, don’t tell me. For you, maybe that’s even a reasonable assumption.” Tony takes a sip of his coffee and studies him. “Clint’s not as famous as you, or me. Or Thor, even, because he can’t stop trying to be best friends with everyone who takes his picture. But if someone leaks his dick size, half of America is going to know what Clint’s got.”

                “But _why_?” Stark doesn’t seem to be making fun of him, which is the only reason Steve can still have this conversation. If there’s even a hint that Stark wants to make this an argument, Steve will go for it, immediately, because he understands arguments. And, however brave people think he is, the truth is that Steve has always preferred to fight from familiar ground.

                “People want to know,” Tony says, with a shrug. “People will take any scrap of information they can get about famous people, and the weirder and more invasive it is, the more they want it.”

                People used to know a lot about their friends and next to nothing about strangers, and now, somehow, it seems like that’s flipped. Steve doesn’t know how people live like this. In the Tower, where he lives, he can go a whole day without speaking to anyone. But if he sets foot outside, he’s asking for a half-dozen people to call him by name before he makes it a block.

                It was different, back in the 40’s. It’s not that it _didn’t_ happen. But it was quieter, or more isolated, or easier to avoid. Now it’s constant. He could spend his entire life just refreshing a Google search of his own name, reading new things about himself every hour of every day.

                It’s even worse for Tony. Tony’s whole life is online. And Steve knows that, because, in the end, he’s no better than all these theoretical people who want to know the precise measurements of Clint’s genitalia. Steve’s spent hours of his life, looking at pictures and articles and videos about Tony.

                “So if you hook up with a reporter,” Tony says, “make sure they aren’t livestreaming it. And if you go to a strip club, pick a classy one, and tip really well. Okay? And not with your dick. You’re better than that.”

                “I hate the future,” Steve says. He doesn’t mean to. It slips out of him, because Tony’s staring at him, more earnest than he usually gets, and Steve mistakes that for friendship, because it’s been awhile, and his frame of reference has been ruined. He’s starved for it, maybe.

                He’s starved for a lot of things, in this time of infinite plenty. Not ration cards in sight, and he still can’t ever seem to get full.

                Tony considers him for a moment, humming thoughtfully while he downs more coffee. “Well,” he says, “time travel’s more of a Bruce thing, but maybe I’ll see what I can do.”

                Steve takes a breath. It’s a fantasy, and he knows it. And, anyway, if he goes back, he’ll probably just find himself missing the future.

                But it’d be nice, to go back. Just for a while. Just for one night, if that’s all he could get. Just so he could have that dance with Peggy after all.

 

\- - -

 

                The strangest part of the future, though, is how much hasn’t changed at all. He doesn’t know how the others don’t see it. Tony’s not _subtle_. Not about anything. And he’ll give Bruce a pass because he’s a civilian, and he’ll grant the same to Thor because he’s not human, but Clint and Natasha have to look at Tony and know exactly what they’re seeing.

                He doesn’t know why they don’t _act_.  

                Maybe they’re waiting for Steve. Maybe they’ve offered help and been rebuked. If this were a real team, something would have been done about this already. None of the Howling Commandos would’ve let one of their own fall into this kind of pit alone. Every single one of them watched out for the others.

                Steve hates this future. Because the Howling Commandos slept on the ground in empty barns, but they were _together_. And his team sleeps on different floors in the same tower, and sometimes they don’t see each other for days at a time, and everyone is some kind of alone.

                “Mr. Stark requested privacy, Captain Rogers.” JARVIS is, as always, unfailingly polite.

                Steve sighs and lifts his eyes to the nearest camera. “Come on, JARVIS,” he says, quietly. “You don’t really want him alone right now, do you?”

                “He asked not to be disturbed.”

                Steve nods slowly and then steps into the elevator anyway. “Just tell him I want to see him. Tell him I’m _asking_ to see him.”

                There’s a long pause and then the elevator rises up and opens onto Tony’s floor.

                “Cap!” Tony says, jovial and friendly and waving a half-empty whiskey bottle like a baton. “Did you need something?”

                “Just wanted to check on you,” Steve says. This part is always awkward. It’d taken weeks with some of the Commandos. It hadn’t taken any time at all with Bucky, but Steve figures Bucky lost the need for desperate obfuscation, when Steve pulled him right off the table he’d been tortured on.

                “Me?” Tony makes a face at him, like that’s ludicrous and endearing, all at once. “All digits and toes are accounted for, Cap.”

                “I read your file,” Steve says. He leans his hip against the bar Tony’s standing behind. “I read everyone’s file.”

                “Boy Scout,” Tony says. He sounds accusatory, and fond. He flips a tumbler right side up, and pours a healthy amount into the glass before setting the bottle aside. Steve’s not sure if he’s embarrassed to be seen drinking straight from the bottle, or if he thinks Steve will be upset by it.

                “Bucky used to shake like you do.” It comes out wrong. It always does. Steve’s not _good_ at this. “Not all the time. Just when something set him off. He was a prisoner of war, too.”

                “I wasn’t a prisoner of war, Cap.” Tony stares down at the glass in his hand and then smiles, and it’s mean, derisive. It’s the kind of smile he used to give Steve, back before they found ways to talk to each other without fighting every damn time. “I wasn’t a soldier.”

                Steve shakes his head at the contempt in Tony’s voice. “Tony,” he says, “we were made into soldiers. It’s a process, not a trait. It’s not—it’s the same.”

                Tony’s eyes flick up to his. He wants to fight, and maybe it would be a kindness, drawing fire. Maybe it would be better for both of them, if Steve took that anger circling Tony and brought it down on himself, instead.

                But he doesn’t want to fight. He’s been fighting since he woke up in the wrong century. And he can’t say that he’s gained much ground, although it’s always hard to tell, when you’re in the middle of it.

                “You come up against something,” Steve says, “and you become whatever you have to, to get past it.”

                “Thanks,” Stark says, flatly. “I appreciate it, Cap. Thanks for all this. It’s been great. But I’m fine, alright? I don’t need your pep talk. Save it for the battlefield, yeah? I’m not some fainting flower.”

                Steve lifts his chin. “Bucky Barnes,” he says, “was the best friend I ever had. Braver than me on my best day. And if you woke him up wrong, he’d repeat his serial number twenty times before he figured out where he was, and sometimes he’d shake, and sometimes he wouldn’t sleep, and he sure as hell wasn’t a fainting flower.”

                Tony looks ashamed, suddenly, which isn’t what Steve was after, but it’s better than the sneers.

                 Steve sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “It’s not because you’re _weak_ , Tony,” he says. “It’s just because it happened.”

                Tony stares at him for a long moment and then tosses the drink back, drains the whole thing in one swallow. Steve stares at the long stretch of this throat, and he’s not surprised by the disappointment, but the _interest_ catches him a little off-guard.

                Well, he guesses all parts of him had to defrost at some point. Maybe, someday, that feeling of ice in his chest, the sharp pain that wakes him up at night, will melt away too.

                “Got it, Cap,” Tony says. “I’ll watch the shakes. Get medicated. Something. It’s fine. It won’t interfere with our work.”

                “I’m not worried about the work,” Steve says. _I’m worried about you_ , he thinks, but he doesn’t say that part.

                He’s not sure, in this century, what he’s allowed to say to who. He knows he’s supposed to be some kind of liberated – _Isn’t everything easier these days? No more repression. You don’t have to hide anything!_ – but generally all he feels is lost.

                People don’t talk the way they used to, and they don’t touch the way they used to. Not men, anyway. Not outside of families, and romance.

                So Steve’s stuck there, not sure what to say, knowing better than to touch, and Tony stares at him for a stretch of seconds drawn so sharp it’s feels like a garrote against his throat. And then Tony picks up the bottle and pours himself another drink.

                “Appreciate it,” Tony says. It sounds more like _goodbye_ than _thank you_.

                “Just.” Steve flounders. He has no follow-up. He’s not Tony’s babysitter or his parent or commanding officer. He is – barely, only sometimes – his team leader. He wishes, with a sick, desperate flash of regret, that Bucky were here. “Let me call Pepper, or Happy. Or Colonel Rhodes. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

                Tony sighs heavily and gives Steve a look like he’s some kind of nuisance. He almost never looks at him that way anymore. “Alright,” he says, with a pacifying wave of his hand. “I’ll call Rhodey, okay? That work for you?”

                Steve hesitates. He considers pressing the issue. He thinks about asking Tony to start the call now, while he’s still in the room, just to make sure that he actually does it. But Tony’s not much of a liar. He’ll evade questions all day long if he doesn’t want to answer, but he doesn’t _lie_ that often. Not to the team. Not to Steve.

                “That works,” Steve says. He turns to leave. It’s easier to talk, somehow, when he’s not looking at him. “If you need anything,” he says, “I’m just a few floors down.”

                “Might regret that, Cap,” Tony says to his retreating back. “I’ve been told I’m needy.”

                Steve doesn’t know who the hell said that to Tony. It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t.

                “It’s an honor,” he says, a little helpless, out of his depth and out of his time. “It’s an honor to be trusted with something like that, Tony.”

 

\- - -

 

                There’s another mass shooting, followed almost immediately by Steve getting pulled from all live interviews because he gets a bit too honest about his feelings. With a newly cleared schedule, Steve sits quietly in his room for hours, reading everything he can find about the civilians who died.

                It’s not his fault. He knows it isn’t. He knows that it isn’t his responsibility to save everyone. It’s no one’s responsibility to save everyone. In this new, shining, empowered future, it’s everyone’s responsibility to save themselves.

                It’s a cynical thought. It isn’t fair, and it isn’t useful. He lets it fade out of his mind.

                He digs his way out of his avalanche of open tabs, reorients toward an article about first responders. He remembers the medics in the war. He doesn’t think he’ll ever have that kind of bravery. It’s not an easy thing, pulling a human being apart. But it’s far easier than shouldering the burden of trying to piece them back together.

                “Captain Rogers,” JARVIS says, “Mr. Stark is outside your door.”

                “Oh.” Steve rubs at his face. He wonders if Tony is here to laugh at him for the things he said on live national television. After a second, he dismisses that thought and wonders, instead, which cause Tony will be pouring his money into tomorrow.

                “Hey,” Tony says, when Steve opens his door. He’s loose-limbed and relaxed, the way he only gets when he’s downed enough alcohol to drown all that manic energy. “Hey,” he says, again, “Rhodey’s on a mission. Pep’s on a date.”

                “Alright,” Steve says, genuinely nonplussed as to why he’s receiving this information.

                Tony blinks at him. His face doesn’t fold up so much as it smooths out, and Steve didn’t realize he was looking at vulnerability until Tony is carefully erasing it.

                “Oh,” Steve says. He hesitates. Tony’s watching him warily now, hands in his pockets, chin lifted at an angle somewhere between _problem?_ and _go to hell_. “Not doing well?” Steve settles on, eventually.

                Tony blinks at him. When he runs a hand through his hair, it’s shaking. He shoves it back into his pocket, and there’s a flush of red, rising up his neck, and Steve hates this. He hates how they’re three feet away, in the same place, at the same time, and he still, somehow, feels closer to Bucky and Peggy than he does to Tony.

                “Didn’t catch it,” Tony tells him, slowly. His voice is even, and his shoulders are straight, but he’s staring hard at the floor between them like he’s trying to hide something in his eyes. “Usually, with these things—there are plans. Posts. They _brag_ , most of them. Beforehand. Especially when they’re young. But this time…”

                His hands make a reappearance. It’s a helpless gesture, almost beseeching, like he’s begging Steve for some kind of clemency. They go, quickly and almost violently, back into his pockets as soon as he seems to realize what he’s doing.

                “Nothing,” Tony says, with a shake of his head. “There was _nothing_.”

                Steve stares at him. “Is this about the shooting? Tony, no one--”

                “No one could have prevented it,” Tony says. “Sure. But I _have_. JARVIS and I, the number of these things we’ve caught in time.” He clears his throat, closes his eyes for a second. “God, Rogers,” he says, on a heavy exhale, “you have no idea how many people want to do terrible things.”

                Steve hasn’t considered it, not really. He knows there are areas of the Internet he doesn’t want to visit. He knows that any communications tool - however brilliant, however _useful_ \- is just a tool. No telephone or radio polices itself. He hasn’t thought about what it must be like, to stare right into the worst parts of people, try to assess what’s a valid threat and what’s just sickness spewed out.

                “Tony,” Steve says. He wishes, for the hundredth time, the thousandth, that he was better at this kind of thing. “Sometimes, when some lunatic wants to hurt someone, all you can do is make sure that someone is you. And sometimes, you can’t even do that.”

                Tony’s eyes flick up to meet his. It’s just the shadows of the half-lit hallway, but, somehow, his eyes look even darker than normal. “That all you got, Rogers?” His voice is low, almost raspy. He clears his throat. “That supposed to make me feel better?”

                “There’s nothing that’s gonna make you feel better,” Steve says. “You lost people you thought you could protect. That’s the worst feeling in the world.”

                Tony makes a quiet, strangled noise and drops his head again. “I should’ve caught it,” he says.

                “You go too far down the path of preventing crime before it happens,” Steve says, “and, suddenly, you’re SHIELD. And, honestly Tony, you’re a hell of a lot scarier than SHIELD.”

                Tony grimaces, mouth skewing up like he’s not sure if he’s flattered or annoyed. Steve takes a moment, regroups, and tries again.

                “You fight the fights that you can find,” he says. “There were a hundred other people closer to this one than you were, and every one of them missed it.”

                “Can we just---” Tony breaks himself off, brings a frantic hand up to scratch at the back of his head, comb his hair back into order, straighten the cuffs of his shirt. “Can we get the fuck out of here? Maybe? I have to get out of here, and, if I go alone, it’s gonna end up on TV.”

                Tony’s been careful about his drinking. Only at the Tower, only when the Avengers are unlikely to be called up. He’s sensitive about it, tends to get prickly whenever anyone mentions it. Steve wonders what it cost him, coming up here to ask if Steve will babysit him.

                But that’s not what this. It’s not _babysitting_. Tony’s not a child any more than any of the Howlies were.

                Everyone, at some point, needs a lifeline. Steve’s steady. He’ll do.

                “Sure,” he says, stepping back into his room, leaving the door open in case Tony wants to follow. “Let me get my jacket.”

 

\- - -

 

                There are parts of the future that are almost the past. Late night diners, gray hours of the early morning, empty sidewalks and gum-chewing waitresses. None of it is quite right, but it’s less wrong than it usually is.

                Steve tells Tony, once, during what is maybe the fourth or the fourteenth of their 3am breakfasts, that the whole world feels like the uncanny valley.

                “You ever think,” Tony says, suddenly leaning forward, peering intently into Steve’s eyes, “that this whole thing is a simulation? That when they dug you out of the ice, they plugged you in instead of waking you up? You ever think that maybe none of this is real?”

                Steve blinks at him. “Well,” he says, slowly, “I’ll sure as hell be thinking that _now_.”

                Tony laughs, smile a little too sharp-edged to be comforting. “Don’t worry,” he says. “If this were a simulation, it’d be _my_ simulation. And if it were my simulation, your uniform wouldn’t cover you from wrist to ankle.”

                Tony flirts like breathing. He proposed to the waitress five minutes ago, when she gave up in refilling his coffee cup and just brought him an entire pot. He doesn’t mean anything by it.

                “If you’ve got suggestions,” Steve says, arms thrown over the back of the booth, “I’d be happy to pass them along to SHIELD.”

                “That’s where you went wrong,” Tony says. “You went to SHIELD, and you should’ve gone to me. Your uniform could’ve been so Goddamn spangled, Rogers. You have no _idea_. I would’ve put stars over your nipples.”

                Steve snorts and has to duck his head, reaching for his own half-empty coffee cup. “You’re everything that’s wrong with this century, Stark,” he says. It’s a lie. It is a _hell_ of a lie.

                His tone must give him away or maybe the fond smile on his face, because Tony beams back, gives Steve’s ankle a companionable nudge under the table.

                The truth it, Tony was right. He _is_ needy. This is the second time this week that he’s shown up at Steve’s door, looking wrenched up in the wrong direction, like a spring wound so tight its bound to break apart any second. And Steve’s been telling himself that he doesn’t mind, but the reality is that he looks forward to it. Maybe he needs it, just as much as Tony does. Maybe he’s been alone since he woke up.

                Useful, but not necessary. Welcome, but not needed.

                Tony needs him. And Steve knows what it’s like to need.

                It’s an honor, like Steve said. It’s an honor to be trusted. But it’s also nice, if he’s honest about it. It’s the first time since Steve woke up that he’s felt like he belongs anywhere.

 

\- - -

 

                Somehow, a picture of the two of them together ends up on the Internet. It’s not incriminating, exactly, because nothing about the picture or what it implies is illegal anymore. But it is certainly suggestive.

                Tony had drawn something out on a napkin, sketched it quickly and effortlessly with his right hand while crunching his way through his toast, and half of Steve’s, with the other. Steve had leaned forward, arm braced on the table, head tipped down, and he’d only been trying to get a better view of the project Tony was describing, but it looks...

                Well. It absolutely looks like Steve’s about to kiss him.

                And Tony, who’s staring up at Steve with one of his rarer smiles, small and happy, an equal mix of smug and sweet, absolutely looks like he expects to be kissed.

                “Oh boy,” Clint says, knocking back a mug of coffee and squinting at his phone. “Do I need to buy you guys flowers?”

                “Barton,” Steve says, exasperated.

                Clint blinks back at him and then nods, a little begrudgingly. “You’re right,” he says. “You two are romantic enough without them. Just thought it’d be nice.”

                There’s nothing _wrong_ with it. Well, the assumption is wrong. He and Tony haven’t been kissing in private, let alone out in public, where anyone might see. They’ve barely found their way to being friends, and, however Steve feels, however many times he catches himself looking, he hasn’t seen anything from Tony that would indicate interest.

                And Tony’s shockingly fragile, under all that armor of metal and bravado, and he’s very nearly as isolated as Steve is. Steve has no intention of gambling what they have on the chance that they could have something more.

                The assumption that they would - the idea that they _already are_ \- is wrong. They aren’t together. Not even in the casual, accidental, thrown-together, _we’ll wait and see_ way that many people are these days.

                Steve goes on a morning talk show to clear everything up.

                Afterward, Clint laughs so hard that Natasha forcibly removes him from the room, and Maria Hill spends several long minutes with her head in her hands.

                Steve thinks Tony will avoid him for a few days, but, when he takes himself down to Tony’s lab, the doors open easily, and Tony looks up at him, expression more curious than annoyed. “Wow, Cap,” he says. “You keep talking about me like that in public, and people are gonna get jealous.”

                “Let them,” Steve says, with a shrug. “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

                People have a lot of things to say about Tony Stark. They had a lot of things to say about Howard, too. But Howard took the hits better than Tony does. Howard liked attention. Steve realized months ago that Tony’s relationship with attention is a bit more complicated than that.

                “You know,” Tony says, turning back to his screens, “However flattering it is, I don’t actually need you to go out on television and say nice things about me. I pay people to do that. And weren’t you supposed to be telling people that we _aren’t_ madly in love?”

                Steve clears his throat. It’s so casual, the way Tony says it. Like it’s not a joke or an insult or a confession. There are things about the future that are so hard to bear that Steve thinks he’d give up limbs to be back in the past. And then there are things that feel like the loosening of a noose he’d forgotten was around his throat, like the lifting of a burden he’d grown so used to carrying he hadn’t noticed how much it weighed him down.

                These things people have been speculating so casually about online, they used to be crimes. They still _are_ , in parts of the world. And Steve knew, always, that it wasn’t wrong, no matter what the laws said. But the idea that he could kiss Tony in public and suffer nothing worse than Hill’s exasperation and the slightly louder hate of the groups that have always hated him is so strange that he can’t parse how he feels about it.

                “Sorry,” he says, even though he isn’t. “Maybe you should take lead with the press on this one.”

                Tony looks over at him. His gaze is heavy and considering, and Steve can’t get a read on it at all. After a long moment, he just smiles and shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Thanks, but there’s not a chance in hell that I’m going to go out there and tell everyone I’m _not_ dating Captain America. They’re going to be so busy speculating about this that they won’t even notice what I’m doing to the Aeronautics Division.”

                Steve blinks. He opens his mouth and then, after a beat, he closes it. Well, then. Well. That’s fine.

                “Hey,” Tony says, eyes lighting up with a familiar gleam of mischief. “You own a tux, don’t you? Be my date for the Firefighters’ Family Fund benefit. It’s this weekend. If word leaks that we’re going together, every single ticket will sell.”

                Steve hears, faintly, a very rational part of his mind saying, _That’s ridiculous._ And then, from the nervous part of him that he almost exclusively ignores, _That’s a bad idea_. And then the steady, stoic, serious Captain America saying, _There’s no need to make a spectacle out of yourself._

                But Steve Rogers opens his mouth and says, “Absolutely. Sure.”

                The night of the benefit, Clint sends flowers. To both of them. Steve has no idea what Tony’s card says, but his reads: _Dear Yoko, have fun, but don’t break up the band._

Steve hopes like hell that Clint didn’t make the nice, matronly flower delivery woman tape the condom to the back of the card.

 

\- - -

 

                The truth, when he finds it, is that the best part of the future is the same as the best part of the past. A thrown-together team, a little feral, a little more dangerous than anyone ever expects. A brunette with a sharp, crooked smile, a hell of a right hook, and the kind of stubborn streak that could outlast empires. A cause worth protecting, a team ready for war, and a reason to come home, when the fighting’s over.

                There’s one fight that hits like the breaking of a fever. The team lurches and catches and nearly tears itself apart a dozen times and then, finally, they come together so perfectly that it feels like they’ve fought every battle of their lives together. Their enemies are put down, and the streets are made safe, and not a single civilian dies. It’s a good fight, cleaner than most.

                Steve’s exhausted, hollowed out from the exertion. He’s soaked in sweat, red-faced, feels like he could fall into bed and stay there for days. But there’s a certainty rising in him, a lightness he feels from the pit of his stomach to the backs of his eyes.

                He’s better. He’s done. His work, for now, is over, and he has done enough. There is nowhere else he needs to be, and no one else he should be with, and no other battle he should be fighting.

                He rubs blood off his chin and sweat off his forehead, and, when Iron Man swoops down and settles beside him, he can’t keep the smile off his face.

                God, he hasn’t fit this easily in his skin since he woke up in the wrong century. He hasn’t felt this light since he and the Howlies were crashing through Europe.

                “Hey there, Cap,” Tony says. His faceplate flips up, and he eyes Steve like he’s not sure what to make of him, even as his mouth crooks up in a slow, answering smile. “You get hit in the head?”

                “Something like that,” Steve says.

                He’s been dragging the weight of every single one of those seventy ice-bound years. He’s been stuck, buried in the past, the hooks of everything he left behind anchored deep into his skin. But the lines are cut. He’s free.

                It stings, and it aches, but it’s the kind of pain that means he’s on his way to better. Like a limb coming back from sleep, he’s all pins and needles and butterflies and pain. But he’ll take pain over numbness every day of his life, in whatever century he finds himself in.

                “Hey, Tony,” he says, “if you’re still working on that time machine, you can probably stop.”

                Tony blinks at him. That uncertain smile twists down with confusion and then flickers into a blinding grin. “Hell, Cap,” he says, “you find something worth sticking around for?”

                Steve shrugs, shifts his shield onto his back and gives Tony another wide, dopey grin. He can never find the right words when he needs them. He can’t ever tell people what they mean to him. But sometimes the way forward is so brightly and clearly lit that even he can find his way.

                “Sure,” he says, with a shrug. “Found you.”

                It’s a gamble, maybe. It’s sure a hell of a risk. But Steve’s been ducking his head and charging at risks since he was old enough to walk, and that’s not something that any amount of time-jumping can change.

                Tony goes perfectly still for a second. He has a look on his face like he’d ask JARVIS to replay the audio from the last thirty seconds if he didn’t have his faceplate up. There’s a long, terrible pause, and then Tony’s eyes drop slowly to Steve’s mouth.

                Steve spends his life missing references, misreading signals. He’s not fluent in the new modern dialectic. He’s still learning the norms. And, even if the jarring sense of culture shock is slowly losing ground, he still finds himself thrown by things most people consider as normal as breathing.

                But _that_ look. That look, on Tony’s face, right now, is the kind of look that anyone on earth could translate.

                Steve leans forward, hooks a hand around the solid, immovable arch of the Iron Man’s back, and he tugs. In this, at least, Tony’s easily led, which is its own kind of revelation.

                When Steve presses his lips against Tony’s, it feels like some kind of homecoming, like the kind of thing that could anchor him, if he let it. He pauses, takes a breath, feels Tony’s mouth pulling into that familiar wicked grin.

                The best thing about the future, Steve realizes, is the people in it.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from "Until I Am Whole" by The Mountain Goats. 
> 
> For fic updates and to watch as I fail, spectacularly, to complete this bingo challenge on time, follow me [on tumblr](https://thepartyresponsible.tumblr.com/).


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